Watch a BBC newscaster explain the U.S. ivermectin boom to a British audience

BBC News broadcaster Ros Atkins presented a seven-minute rundown this week of the surge in the off-label use of ivermectin to treat or try and prevent COVID-19, mostly in the U.S. It's "fascinating" to watch this outside look at "the U.S. ivermectin craze," Dr. Bob Wachter at U.C. San Francisco tweeted Thursday, adding that Atkins "plays it [straight-ish], but you can imagine what would be in a thought bubble."
"In the U.S., a drug called ivermectin is being touted as a way of treating and preventing COVID-19, despite a lack of evidence to back this up," Atkins said. "Ivermectin is cheap, it's widely available, its makers won the 2015 Nobel Prize for Medicine for how it treats parasitic diseases in humans. It's also used as a dewormer for horses, and the advice from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the FDA, is clear" — it isn't approved for COVID-19.
The FDA's increasingly urgent "intervention was prompted by an increase in sales of ivermectin" at pet and feed stores, Atkins said. "And look at this: According to the U.S. National Poison Data System, there was a 245 percent jump in reported exposure cases from July to August. In other words, these are people who've taken ivermectin and become ill."
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
For these people and others, "it seems either the distinction between the products for humans and animals is not registering, or some people don't mind," Atkins said. "And to understand why ivermectin has become bound up in the pandemic, we need to go back to last year," and early research that has led nowhere yet.
Some U.S. doctors are prescribing ivermectin anyway, "and it's clear that many of those who are turning to ivermectin despite a lack of evidence are turning away from the COVID vaccines, despite a lot of evidence," Atkin concludes. "All of which means that as case numbers in the U.S. have risen through the summer, so has interest in ivermectin. It's a story about some Americans' response to COVID, but it's also a story about the erosion of trust in politics and in science, and how that erosion has led some people to conclude that this drug is what they need — even, in some cases, the version of it that's for horses." Watch his full report below, including his attempt to say "y'all" and his winking fact check of Australian tennis player Pat Cash.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.
-
The sneaking rise of whooping cough
Under the Radar The measles outbreak isn't the only one to worry about
By Theara Coleman, The Week US
-
RFK Jr. visits Texas as 2nd child dies from measles
Speed Read An outbreak of the vaccine-preventable disease continues to grow following a decade of no recorded US measles deaths
By Peter Weber, The Week US
-
Shingles vaccine cuts dementia risk, study finds
Speed Read Getting vaccinated appears to significantly reduce the chances of developing Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia
By Peter Weber, The Week US
-
Measles outbreak spreads, as does RFK Jr.'s influence
Speed Read The outbreak centered in Texas has grown to at least three states and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is promoting unproven treatments
By Peter Weber, The Week US
-
Five years on: How Covid changed everything
Feature We seem to have collectively forgotten Covid’s horrors, but they have completely reshaped politics
By The Week US
-
RFK Jr. offers alternative remedies as measles spreads
Speed Read Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. makes unsupported claims about containing the spread as vaccine skepticism grows
By Peter Weber, The Week US
-
Texas outbreak brings 1st US measles death since 2015
Speed read The outbreak is concentrated in a 'close-knit, undervaccinated' Mennonite community in rural Gaines County
By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US
-
Mystery illness spreading in Congo rapidly kills dozens
Speed Read The World Health Organization said 53 people have died in an outbreak that originated in a village where three children ate a bat carcass
By Peter Weber, The Week US